Electra Heart

Marina Lambrini Diamandis' second album is a high-gloss record made with Dr. Luke, Stargate, Greg Kurstin, and Liam Howe, and dressed in layers of philosophy, mythology, and blonde wigs.

In Marina Lambrini Diamandis' oft-cited comeback interview with Popjustice last August, she introduced the concept that would lead into her second album: that of Electra Heart, a kind of not-quite-alter-ego/character/affectation/cinematic simulacrum that would feed into the follow-up to her 2010 debut LP as Marina and the Diamonds, The Family Jewels. Representing Greek tragedy, the "loss and failure" side of the American Dream, a daddy complex, and the vacuity apparently lingering inside us all, over six months prior to the eventual release of the LP there was very much a feeling of Marina over-complicating the whole affair: trying to dress up the high-gloss record that she had made with Katy Perry's collaborators (seemingly at the behest of her major label) in layers of philosophy, mythology, artifice, and blonde wigs. (There's a babyish song here called "Hypocrates", misspelled for seemingly no good reason, and with no reference to the philosopher in the song.) It must have stung like billy-o when Lana Del Rey came along and executed precisely what Marina was aiming for, hardly having to open her much-discussed mouth in order to explain herself whilst Marina tied herself in conceptual knots. In short, Electra Heart bears no profound relationship to Greek mythology or philosophical thought beyond exploring situations of basic human pathos (or lack thereof), but its rare affecting moments are heavy with tragedy.

The Family Jewels was disliked by many for its vaudevillian Sparks-like gaucheness, Marina's self-aggrandizement and cock-a-hoop vocal (though there's no doubting the chops of a song like "Hollywood"). But there was a sense of personality to the music as well as Diamandis' deep, hiccupy voice, and a promising sense of audaciousness that's been all but lost here. Working with Dr. Luke, Stargate, Greg Kurstin, and Liam Howe, the songs on Electra Heart fall into three basic categories: the bland, swampy banger (sub-category: "Lies"' Skrillex-lite), a regal, electronic strut falling somewhere between Depeche Mode at their poppiest and the Doctor Who theme tune, and very cloying, nursery rhyme music-box ballads. The campy ding-dong of "The State of Dreaming" is as close as Electra Heart gets to fun, with huge church bells whooshing from side to side in the mix like a pantomime dame testing the trajectory of her ball gown skirts. Relegating great early single "Radioactive" to the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of the LP is nearly as daft as some of the waffle that Marina comes out with here.

Marina really, really wants you to know that she's into pop culture, though the lazy, meaningless strings of references that comprise a good chunk of the songs here aren't any kind of postmodern comment on the Tumblr-ification of society, but just plain bad songwriting. The bombardment of archetypes and clichés is exhausting: "Beauty queen of a silver screen" persuading someone to buy her "a big diamond ring" on "Primadonna"; the titular "Homewrecker" (where excruciatingly bad spoken word verses clash against a pretty triumphant chorus) whose "life is a mess, but I'm still looking pretty in this dress." "Teen Idle" is just horrible, a glitchy ballad that sounds as though it was recorded in a church, where she wishes to be a "virgin pure/ A 21st century whore," "a prom queen fighting for the title/ instead of being 16 and burning up a bible/ feeling super super super suicidal," a chorus of Marinas echoing "super." She wishes for "blood, guts, and angel cake" because "I'm gonna puke it anyway," a weird preoccupation of hers that also crops up in "Homewrecker" ("girls and their cosmic gourmet vomit"), continued from "Girls" on her debut. But as for ending the ego, Marina does seem obsessed with ideas of finality and death-- knowing "where I will belong/ When they blow me out" on the quavering, celestial "Fear and Loathing"-- seemingly finding solace in the reliability of microcosmic, compact celebrity tragedies, perhaps in the face of the parts of this album that ring desperately true.

"You only ever touch me in the dark/ Only if we're drinking can you see my spark," she sings on "Lies". "The only time you open up is when we get undressed," she laments on "Starring Role", which glimmers like clashing porcelain before a stuttering, empowering chorus where she refuses to be a supporting cast member in an alluded-to love triangle. "Doesn't mean that I am weak," she asserts on "Power & Control", repeating, "I am weak, I am weak, I am weak" in an increasingly ephemeral voice. "Every day I feel the same/ Stuck, and I can never change/ Sucked into a black balloon/ Spat into an empty room" goes "Living Dead", a snappy, taut Soft Cell-like number. It feels like shaky ground to say that these vulnerable moments are Electra Heart's finest, catchiest, and hardest-hitting songs, Marina's soaring vocals packing some genuine emotion, picking up on themes of self-loathing that don't need blasé allusions to bulimia in order to indicate emotional emptiness; where the often transcendent states of sex and alcohol collaborate for profoundly dispiriting experiences. Her honesty, at least, is empowering. Whilst there's no getting past some of the duller and more unbearable material on this record, it's a real shame that it's come hamstrung in this unnecessary concept, ready for people to laugh when Marina fails to pull it off. If she'd made a record full of songs as unaffected as these four, Electra Heart could be one of the year's most acclaimed pop albums. Let's hope there's a next time.